My fodder setup : Natural Feeding for Rabbits

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Thought I'd share my set up here. It's working out so far, I haven't had any problems with mold and I'm keeping the mats pretty thin . Alternating between wheat fodder and barley fodder and throwing in some boss.

I'm still testing out soaking times. I've done anywhere from 6 to 24 hour soaks and I haven't seen a lot of difference.

There are a lot of posts about fodder in the forum I think, but long story short: soak it, then water it twice a day for so many days and you get healthy green grass, no dirt needed! Then you can feed the rabbits the whole thing, roots, seeds, and all.

__________ Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:38 pm __________

It's a really cost efficient way to get greens for the buns. A 50# bag of wheat seed costs $8 here and 1# of seed turns into like... 3 or 4 pounds of fodder.??

I'm so grateful to the folks here on RT that got us started on fodder our first winter with rabbits. We feed lots of forage through the growing season and just when the good green stuff is gone for our north country winter it is cool enough to start growing out wheat fodder. We haven't had mold trouble except when it gets too warm--or maybe it's the humidity? We grow just wheat because we can't get barley and oats are said to be harder to grow. We soak for about 12 hours and keep the sprouting seeds in plastic coffee containers with lids and drains slots for the first 2 days, then spread them in the plastic flats you use in a greenhouse. The fodder does weigh more than the seed, but that is because it's wetter and water is heavy. My understanding is that fodder has more protein and fewer calories than the seed, but I'm not sure. I remember reading lots of contradictory stuff about nutritional values when we were thinking about starting. We do it to keep our rabbits on some fresh green feed through the winter. We don't feed pellets and find that the fodder works well for our rabbits along with their hay, dried willow, and roots. We only feed grain to nursing does and growing out kits. Glad to hear that your fodder growing is working out well for you--lots of posts from folks who had problems with it.

This is a lengthy thread, but very informative. In the end, I found it far too time consumingfor the benefits received. The stock enjoyed it, but it didn't seem to help them to any great degree. Best of luck with yours.